By Chuck Munson

This is a bit late but I almost forgot to mention. The lodge teamed up with the Grand Ledge A&W in April to hold a fundraiser for the Lansing Food Bank. We did the advertising and A&W did the cooking. All it took was people to come in and order a spaghetti dinner and they would contribute some money toward our charity.

After it was done we raised around $300 to go toward the Lansing Food Bank. A big thanks to all of you out there that may have stopped in to support this cause. We plan on doing more of this in the future so stay tuned to go and have a dinner for charity.

Another year is in the books for Grand Ledge Yankee Doodle Days and for us at the Masonic Lodge in Grand Ledge. For the past few years we have been asked to provide the food at the beer tent here in town. So as usual we set up our booth in the back of the tent to food for the hungry patrons.

Two hogs tied down in the aircraft.

When Pigs Fly

A very interested bit of information is that we actually flew these pigs in. Wait for it….so I guess you can now say pigs have flown.

This year we did something a bit different. We decided we would try and roast a pig and that we did. Our brother Jeff spearheaded that big task and spent most of the night cooking it. They put it on the roaster at around 10pm on Friday and Saturday at 11am it was ready for eating.

Brother Jeff AKA the Grill master

So during the parade we started to cut it up and prepare it for the many people that lined up to take part in eating it. There were times when I looked over and there must have been at least 20 people in line. A big thanks to brother Ed for keeping Jeff company and assisting him all night at the grill.

I don’t have the numbers for this years festivities but from the way the sales were going I think overall it was a big success. The rain held off and it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot, making it pleasant to be one of the workers. I want to again thank all of the workers that helped out this year. A big thanks to all of the committees that worked on this for us.

Well we finally did it. The lodge and star had our first pasty dinner together. As the lodge we needed more worker and the star was looking for a fundraiser. I can only say from my point of view from being in the kitchen, it ran so much smoother this time. I think this is the start of a great thing. One thing that I noticed right from the get go was showing up to build pasties Friday and the hall was already set up for the dinner, something that we would normally have to do once the pasties were made. It wasn’t one of our biggest turn outs but we continue to grow with each dinner.

We built over 334 pasties due to Yankee Doodle Days this weekend and we were basically out of frozen pasties. A huge thanks to Mike, Steve, Bob and Kevin as well as all of the Star members that came out to work the dinner. The day wouldn’t have been a success with out you.

Brother Kevin keeps working out products that seem to have started to streamline our process. We will be “dark”, or otherwise won’t be having dinners for the next two months, but if you would like frozen pasties let us know and we can get you some. $10 a box and that is for two 1 lb pasties.

So its been a while since I have been able to post and figured I would get back at it. Between going to military schools, work and computer issues I finally have some much needed free time to be able to get back at this.

To start off I just wanted to say thanks to all of those that helped with the pasty dinner this last Friday. We finally broke the $1000 mark that I wanted as WM. Not only that but we completely sold out of all the pasties we made that day for the dinner. I believe the number was around 151 pasties were made. We sold out of beef pasties first and we had people in line to buy and when we told them we were out of beef they left. Then we ran out of to go boxes and had to come up with a way to send people out of there with to go orders.

We were down to six chicken pasties left and 10 minutes left in the night when a lady stopped by and bought all of them for some men working at her house putting in a septic system for her. It was an amazing night and I can’t thank everyone enough.

Our brother Kevin put together an awesome flyer that was put out at several of the local stores. I have to believe that had something to do with the success.

Well this was short and sweet, but I just wanted to get this up and running again. Remember if you know anyone that is looking for a hall rental to get a hold of us. Brother Kevin is working on the website to make it more interactive. Until the next time.

December 11th 2013 the Grand Ledge Lodge 179 held our installation for 2014. We had a very successful year in the lodge this past year and we are looking to keep up the steam as we go into 2014. We have a great line up this year of officers.

A big thanks to my Grand Officers that installed us this year. Thank you Gill, Ron, Vaugn and Kim.

For the past five years the lodge has been the location for the community Thanksgiving Day meal. This year they served around 700 meals at no cost to anyone that wanted or needed a meal. People could just show up and have a place to have a nice meal. We have everyone from college kids to older people that have their families far away and just wanted to be able to have a thanksgiving meal without needing to cook a large dinner for only a couple people.

The dinner is put on in Grand Ledge by an army of volunteers. Numerous churches are involved in the effort. Many cook the turkeys in their church kitchens and then transport them down to the lodge for the serving. This year there were 32 turkeys cooked and prepared for the meal.

I can’t begin to thank all of those that helped with the dinner. Mike and Sherri were there all day. It is a great honor that we get to use our hall to support such an event in our community. I wish I could list everyone that was a supporter of the dinner but at this time I don’t have the information on that. We were presented with a certificate of appreciation that I will show in lodge this coming Wednesday.

December 1st we held our Christmas party at the lodge. Friends, family, neighbors and all our brothers and sisters in the lodge were invited. This year we had a very nice turn out. Overall we had more than 70 people there.

Santa is for all kids, young and old.

Before Santa came down Mrs. Claus read a story to the children and then they sang a few Christmas songs. Then came time for the big guy to come in.

We had over 20 children this year. After the presents we had a piñata that they all loved taking turns trying to get the candy out of. I only wish that I had got a picture of that.

Thanks Sherri

So all in all we had a very good turn-out for the party. Kathy and I spoke a couple weeks ago and she hadn’t received any RSVP’s for the party and didn’t know if we would continue it if it was only going to be a couple of us there. Thank you for everyone that showed up. I know the kids loved it.

On a last note, we didn’t have a Santa due to brother Bill not feeling up to it. I was asked to fill in and I have to say I had my reservations about doing it. But after it was all said and done it was great to see the smiles and excitement on the little ones faces. A big thanks to Kathy for putting it all together and making this a success.

On Wednesday we had the the privilege to bring in three new Brothers to the lodge. Todd came in last month but he showed up and we put him to work at the Junior Deacon for the night. A big thanks to him, we couldn’t have did it without him. Seth and Kevin were the newest brothers to come in. In the picture with us are Ryan, Mike and Ramone. We are all looking forward to helping them continue on their masonic journey.

We will be having our Past Masters and Honors night this coming Wednesday. Everyone is welcome to attend and encouraged. We would love to see as many people there to show their respects for all the masters that have contributed to the growth and care of the lodge.

Also don’t forget our Pasty Dinner this Friday the 22nd. We will be holding our 50/50 raffle during the dinner.

This past Wednesday night we took time to honor our Past Masters of the lodge and to award all of the legacy awards for those that have been in the lodge for more than 25 years. We had about 34 people there at the dinner and even a couple of visitors.

Brother Wayne

It was great to see all of the Past Masters that turned out for the event. We had a 50 year spread of Past Masters going all the way back to 1961. Brother Wayne was there to get his award and looked better than ever.

We awarded the Mason of the Year to Bob Lindsay this year. I can’t think of a more deserving brother to get this award. Bob puts in a lot of work to keep our lodge operating thru out the year. If you see him give him a much needed congratulation. In the pictures below are all of the past masters that were at the dinner. If you notice to the left of them there is a picture. We have taken the top row of our Past Masters at the lodge and put them on one picture to make room for future Past Masters.

Past Masters

Past Masters with Awardees, Brothers Bob and Wayne

A big thanks to my wife Gayla for the dinner she made and served during the night. There was a lot of hard work that went into it and I think we pulled it off in the end.

The lodge held a day to spruce up the lodge and two of the areas that we decided to concentrated on was the hallways and bathrooms. Recent rain problems and draining issues had allowed water to seep through the walls and flake the paint in several areas. As you can see in the pictures above the paint that had been damaged. This is of course after we had scraped the walls to prepare to paint them.

Our resident expert Ryan was on hand to help us tackle the job. Anyone can paint but having the proper tools of the trade and small tricks of the trade made the work much easier. Ryan was so fast at taping the walls and floors it amazed us.

Some of the pictures of the painting in progress.

I was telling Bob when we were painting that after we had been painting that I really couldn’t see the difference in the walls. It took the pictures to show me the difference. A big thanks to the Bob, Ryan, Ramone and Gill for all the hard work. Thanks again.